Australian Politics

Good. Rich people should be allowed to use taxpayers money as they wish because taxpayers can't do anything. When France increased the retirement age to 63, there were riots and protest happening all over France. Here in Australia, its 67 and probably increase it to 70 within the next decade. Nobody will say or do anything but will keep on complaining to their friends and family.

I think the biggest issue here is the presence and charisma of the person delivering the speeches.

Liberal senator Maria Kovacic about why an additional person had to be hired.

"Do you have the capability within that team to deliver?"

Bit of a loaded question from the Coalition given their record of slashing government jobs.

The article headline is a bit crappy though, with the actual article starting at the very bottom of the page:

Despite Ms Smith not being able to initially provide detail around the hiring of Ms Stewart, she later provided further information about how the contract came about.

The AusTender contract stated the value over two years was $620,499. Ms Smith said 20 months into the contract $447, 516 had been paid, which also covered superannuation, sick and holiday leave. Travel costs would be an additional cost.

Ms Smith said the department had not been able to find a suitable speechwriter. As a result, the department looked to hire someone at market rate, which is higher than what is offered to public servants at around $140,000.

Ms Smith described the decision to hire Ms Smith [I think they mean Stewart here] as a "direct source contract" but wouldn't say who made that final decision.

"Speechwriting, as you will appreciate, is a specialised skill set, and accomplished and available speechwriters remain difficult to source," she said.

Ms Smith clarified her earlier evidence that while the department now has speechwriters as part of their communication team, there were none at the time of hiring of Ms Stewart, who is also tasked with training staff within the department on speechwriting.

A real big non-story to me. They are not being paid 600k to write Bill Shorten's speeches, they are being paid to write his speeches and train staff within the department to write speeches (Assuming the contract won't be extended). While it seems like more of a political job, it is important that ministers are able to effectively communicate with the Australian community.

Why doesn't Shorten just use ChatGPT to write his speeches? Is he stupid?

The high quality zingers we've come to expect from Shorten don't come cheap!

https://youtu.be/4jZ_sZw9iNs

Taxpayer funded it's certainly on the nose. But I don't have an issue with a skilled writer being paid that much. I know a hell of a lot of people earning similar who don't possess that kind of skill in anything they do. Creatives should be paid well.

Standard beat up by the Liberals on this one

Senator Reynolds pushed the department on whether it was appropriate to spend money on hiring an additional speechwriter.

"When Services Australia who is paying for this contract is keeping people waiting increasingly longer for crisis payments, for aged care payments

I would like to ask Senator Reynolds under which government did those services deteriorate for a decade?

Under which government did we have Services Australia pushing people to suicide with Robodebt?

Perhaps a highly paid speech writer is required in part due the outrageous harm the Liberals have cause Australians who needed services and instead were pushed to suicide.

Make no mistake. The Liberals are scum and don’t give a single fuck about Aussie battlers.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A speechwriter will be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over two years to assist government minister Bill Shorten, despite Services Australia saying it initially had the capacity to provide help.

Services Australia deputy chief executive officer Susie Smith was questioned by Liberal senator Maria Kovacic about why an additional person had to be hired.

Services Australia officials confirmed its staff had not written any speeches for Mr Shorten in the past 12 months.

Ms Stewart's LinkedIn profile paints a picture of a highly qualified speechwriter who has provided assistance to four prime ministers, including Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.

She also assisted Alan Joyce when he was the CEO of Qantas and was the principal speechwriter to the vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales.

Before entering the corporate world and politics, Ms Stewart wrote scripts for Australian drama shows such as Sons and Daughters and A Country Practice.

The original article contains 858 words, the summary contains 155 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!